Intel ships new generation Thunderbolt

Intel has begun shipping its second generation of Thunderbolt controllers. Intel has announced that it is "finally shipping" the controllers, codenamed "Cactus Ridge."

A "handful" of PC motherboards have been delayed because Intel wants to ship the updated controllers. While Thunderbolt is starting to appear in motherboards, it has mostly been seen in iMacs. [You have one of those, don't you? Ed]

There are some rumpours that the new Thunderbolt support will appear in the new Mac Pro systems could also add Thunderbolt support, but there are stronger rumours that Jobs' Mob is walking away from its profession computer range.

Intel will reportedly offer two Thunderbolt solutions for its next-generation Ivy Bridge chips. The 12x12mm DSL3310 controller chip has two lanes of PCI Express bandwidth and uses 2.1W of power, while the DSL3510 provides four PCI express lanes and draws 2.8W.